Oh say can you see… amazing Alaskan sights for the fourth of July! While it was a bit weird being away from the kids on Independence Day it was pretty great waking up after a great night of sleep in darkness (thanks inside cabin!) and having a whole sea day of adventures ahead of us.

First Stop – Palo Brunch!

This meal has become pretty infamous (and sometimes hard to get). You have to sign up for it in advance, and it costs a little extra ($40 per person at time of this post). It’s TOTALLY worth it, though! Check out my tips at the end of this post for snagging the infamous Palo Brunch.

After ordering some mimosas, Mickey waffles and Salmon Eggs Benedict (cause Alaska = salmon, am I right?) we headed up to the buffet. It’s basically completely adorable. Tiny little tastes of all kinds of things, contrasted with a massive aged wheel of parmesan… it’s dining heaven.

As we were celebrating our 15th anniversary, our waiter brought us a fun decorated plate, so we of course took some photos! You can see how the booths in Palo are set on the edge of the deck so you have a great view of the water. While I did like this set up, the Dream/Fantasy’s version of Palo are directly over the water aft so you don’t get anyone walking by your table, which I liked just a bit better than the setup here on the Wonder (same as the Magic).

Time for Dessert! Not only do they bring you the most amazing chocolate lava cake I have ever tasted (seriously. this thing is to die for), there is also a dessert buffet with a lot of great bites to try. I really appreciate that these were small so I could try several!

Mickey Waffle & Bellini

A lot of seafood options

Sweet little selection of desserts

Chocolate Lava Cake, also known as the best dessert on Disney Cruise Line

Our overall impression of Palo Brunch on the Disney Wonder

We would HIGHLY recommend this! This would top the adult-only experiences available on the ship for both of us. We also enjoyed Palo dinner, but the brunch is even better. I loved the variety of options. This meal takes a solid 2 hours, and when we had completely finished our meal, they were trying to get us to order Chicken Parm! So you could take it straight from breakfast all the way through lunch. They are NOT hurrying you out of here (so plan accordingly if the kids are being cared for in the nursery, club or with family members!)

To reserve Palo brunch, which costs $40 per person, check in at midnight on your balance due date (make sure you are paid in full). You can start reserving activities and this one is the one I go for first. It’s usually only offered on sea days. If it’s full (very likely if you are a first time cruiser with Disney), then check with the staff as soon as you board. The Navigator (schedule) that you receive at the port check-in will list where you can go to make reservations upon boarding.

There is so much to do on the ship on a sea day. This was actually our first Disney Cruise Line sea day with no kids! I definitely grabbed some photos with characters (I’m pretty much the only one in my family who wants to meet characters on the ship!) On July 4th, the Characters don some classic patriotic outfits so it’s fun to get some photos with them on this day! Plus, Captain America!

Watch a movie (first run and 3D are available!)

Play trivia games or karaoke in the D-Lounge (family friendly)

Enjoy specialty coffees at the adults-only Cove Cafe (we brought games to play and books to read as well).

Relax in O’Gills Pub – watch sports, play chess, read, grab a beer

Take a nap!

Lounge on Deck 4 and watch the world go by

Visit the Spa or Rainforest room

Workoff that breakfast in the fitness center

Enjoy the July 4th celebration

Take a dip in the hot tubs or pools

Using a travel agent saves you the headache of planning your days out by yourself and having to reserve your activities at midnight on check-in day. Work with us to get all your reservations in without lifting a finger!

]]>http://castleandcloud.com/trip-report-disney-wonder-alaska-day-2-july-4th-palo/feed/0Dining on the Disney Wonderhttp://castleandcloud.com/dining-on-the-disney-wonder/
http://castleandcloud.com/dining-on-the-disney-wonder/#respondSat, 20 Oct 2018 23:41:32 +0000http://castleandcloud.com/?p=82I love eating out. The yummy food, the not cooking, the not cleaning… yep, it’s mainly the cleaning thing. I’m always excited to get a break from the daily family menu planning on vacation, and cruising is the ultimate dining break for mom – unlimited food ready whenever you are, and an attentive wait staff to serve and clean up!

The Disney Wonder has three main dining rooms – Animator’s Palate, a whimsical art-themed restaurant which you can find on all 4 of Disney’s cruise ships, Triton’s, a very minimally themed French restaurant with touches from the Little Mermaid, and Tiana’s Place, a New-Orleans’ themed character meal with a live Jazz band and appearances by Tiana and Louie (the alligator!) from the Princess and the Frog. During your cruise, you will dine in each restaurant in an assigned dining rotation at an assigned time, with the same wait staff each night!

Check out my full review of Tiana’s Place here!

We love the setup of Disney Cruise Line dining. Even as two adults who are only mildly interested in the Disney stuff when not with our children, we enjoyed having our table reserved just for us (you can request to sit alone if you prefer no tablemates) at a set time. No “What do you want for dinner?” – “I don’t know what do you want for dinner?” conversations – and no waiting to be seated! You truly maximize your relaxation time with this style of dining.

On your “Key to the World Card” (see my explanation of this Disney Cruise Line essential), you’ll find your dining rotation as a series of letters. They are abbreviations which stand for the first two letters of each main restaurant. On the Wonder, you’ll see: TR = Triton’s, AP = Animator’s Palate, and TP = Tiana’s Place. The order is where you will visit each night, and it’s also listed on your app! On a 7 night cruise, you will experience two unique nights/menus in each venue, and the last night you return to your first night’s venue, however each restaurant features the same “Until we meet again” menu. You can make a request for a certain order, however it’s not guaranteed. If you make any special dining requests, they will probably override your order request, and it’s really not a huge deal unless you have a certain excursion that conflicts with a special dining night that you are looking forward to.

Our Table Number at Animator’s Palate – isn’t it cute?

The Disney Wonder also features Cabanas, a beach-y buffet open for breakfast and lunch, and sometimes for late night snacks. It is also open as a non-reservation sit down meal for dinner, although we don’t usually take advantage of this as we prefer to eat in our assigned dining room. It’s nice if you have to miss a meal though. Each of the 4 Disney ships has a Cabanas buffet restaurant.

Other dining options on the ship are Palo, a reservations-are-a-must, adult-only Italian restaurant open for dinner, and brunch on sea days (very highly sought after!) See my full review of Palo brunch here. You’ll also find plenty of snackage on the deck, with wraps, rice bowls, fruit, hamburgers, pizza and several bars. Cove Cafe, an adults only coffee shop, offers for-charge lattes and coffees, with free pastries and evening hors d’ouevres. Check my opinion of the Cove Cafe (hint: it’s amazing).

Lastly, you’ll find free 24-hour room service and unlimited soda, coffee, tea and hot chocolate – and ice cream! While Disney Cruise Line may not offer as many dining options as some other cruise lines and ships, they certainly offer plenty of high-quality, wonderful dining experiences for the whole family.

We woke up to an absolutely gorgeous sunny day in Vancouver! Before we headed to the port, we grabbed some Starbucks for breakfast (and it felt like it was on sale, seeing how the US dollar was strong against the Canadian dollar this year). You can also check out Tim Horton’s, which is a Canadian coffee shop. There were a lot of shops nearby, and we also ended up hitting Banana Republic for some deals on a few dressy items we had forgotten to pack! After that we walked the few blocks down to the port. I was seriously excited whenever I saw people in Mickey shirts with suitcases – as I knew they had either just disembarked, or were about to embark on the Wonder.

If you get up early, you can actually watch the ship pull into port. Around 6am, it glides up to dock at Canada Place. If you’re from the east coast, you’ll probably find it easy to get up this early and watch it pull in.

The setting of the Port of Vancouver is just gorgeous. The city skyline on one side, with the ships against the backdrop of the mountains – the sparkling water, the puffy clouds – and knowing that in an hour or two you’ll be on that gorgeous ship – it’s really just a thrilling way to start your vacation!

We had to drag our luggage down into this parking deck area, with a fairly small entry. We were not a fan of that setup. If you’re being dropped off by bus it looked a lot more seamless. However there were a LOT of pedestrians walking their luggage in. If you stay at the Fairmont hotel at Canada Place, they will transfer your luggage for you. If you can afford to splurge on it, it’s definitely the place to stay before the cruise. Once DCL crew loaded up our bags (don’t forget your luggage tags!) we headed inside to check in. Our check-in time was around 11:30 and it wasn’t busy at all. We breezed right though and got our Key to the World cards and a boarding number. We headed upstairs to wait for them to call our number! Even though Disney doesn’t have a dedicated area of the port, it’s well marked with plenty of signs and staff.

As you make your way through the process you’ll end up back outside for a bit where we snagged a few more photos.You can get photos with Minnie and some other Disney Characters while waiting to board. We passed on that and just settled in for a few minutes. It was a great time to make sure we had our phones set properly for boarding the ship, and the DCL app downloaded.

In no time they were calling the boarding numbers and we were heading through the doors, being introduced by the crew!

I love that magical moment when the vacation you’ve been planning for so long is finally here! Disney Cruise Line app’s countdown is a fun extra – you just choose your sail date, and it lets you know how long until it’s time to go! In our case, we had booked this cruise as a special couples trip for our 15th wedding anniversary while on board the Disney Dream last fall. (You get a special discount when you book your next cruise on board). Our kids were all packed and ready for summer camp, and we were packed and ready to head to Vancouver to embark on our cruise to Alaska. Grandparents were graciously helping out with our younger son so we could make this trip possible! It had been a long time since we had been away from the boys for a trip.

Part of our decision to visit Alaska on a Disney cruise in the first place was due to the fact that as a travel planner with a focus on Disney and Disney Cruise Line, having first hand experience is crucial. We easily could have sailed Princess cruises, as it was a bit cheaper, but choosing Disney allowed me to gather as much first-hand knowledge as possible!

Getting ready for this trip was not easy. Packing for a trip is always hard, but flying cross country with several large bags filled with clothing for the possibly varying weather – and a bunch of Fish Extender gifts! – was tricky to say the least. We knew it would take the entire day to reach Vancouver from Atlanta, so we left the day before our cruise departed to make sure we arrived at the port in plenty of time.

We were relieved when we were on our first flight to Toronto finally! It’s a short flight and we enjoyed seeing Niagra Falls from the air.

Once we arrived in Toronto, we had to retrieve our checked bags and drop them off with West Jet. This was actually a lot easier than I was anticipating. Then we had to head back through Canadian customs. This whole process can take a while, so we had planned a 3 hour layover, which was plenty of time. We found a pub just past security, and headed in to grab dinner. We immediately ordered some Poutine, as I have great memories of eating the fries/gravy/cheese curds Canadian specialty as a kid on a visit to Montreal. It was actually really good. We also tried some Canadian beer and ordered some pot pies to fuel up for our upcoming 5 hour leg to Vancouver.

We seriously lucked out with a row to ourselves for the long flight. Even my 6’6″ tall hubby was happy with his exit row seat with extra room. I’m short, so my feet didn’t even reach the seat in front of me! This was the most legroom we’ve had in coach in a long time. If I can plug my phone in that’s always a nice bonus.It was a really interesting flight as we took off at sunset, and as we headed west, we continued to enjoy the sunset for the next five hours! The sun finally set as we slowed down to make our descent into Vancouver. We kept up with the time changes and daylight on the West Jet app, as well as watched some movies. They were offering tablets pre-loaded with content for $6 rental which isn’t bad at all. If my device had been low on power I would have definitely opted for that.

The flight attendants on this flight were great! The co-pilot announced that this was the first trip he was taking with his new wife – one of the flight attendants! Everyone cheered at that! The attendants came around several times with snacks and had a few extra options since it was such a long flight. I was extremely cold and grabbed a sweater from my carry-on to help me warm up. We never did doze off, even though it was 1 am EST when we arrived.

I was really wishing I had booked a night at the Fairmont Marriott at Vancouver Airport (it’s right inside the airport), but we had decided to stay downtown. The Vancouver airport was pretty quiet, and we grabbed our bags and headed to the SkyTrain. It was easy to get a ticket at the machine and the train came quickly.
The day we arrived was actually Canada Day 150th celebration. There were a lot of people out and about on the train because of the holiday.

Most of the waterfront had been closed off earlier in the day, but we arrived after the fireworks ended and the crowds had dispersed. We exited at Waterfront station and walked a few blocks to the Days Inn Vancouver Downtown. This older hotel was very affordable, and a fine place to sleep for a few hours. It’s certainly not a luxury hotel, and I wasn’t crazy about the bed. Around 5am, a hideous knocking sound started up in our room but we just tried to ignore it. Overall, even though I can’t recommend the hotel we stayed in that night, it was a very smooth (but long) day of travel! Two flights with no delays and a smooth cross-country trip where all bags are accounted for at the end is a great outcome!